A version of Hoefler Text has been included with every version of the classic Mac OS since System 7.5 and in every version of macOS. Hoefler's company, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, have continued development of the typeface, developing for sale a wide range of additional variants.[3]

Contents

Hoefler Text incorporates then-advanced features which have since become standard practice for font designers, such as automatic ligature insertion, real small capitals, optional old style figures and optional insertion of stylistic alternates such as true superscript and subscript characters, the historical round and long s, engraved capitals and swashes. Hoefler Text also has a matching ornament font. It was, until OpenType made advanced typographic features more common, one of only a few system fonts that contained old style, or ranging, figures, which are designed to harmonize with body text.

Released free with every Mac during the growth of desktop publishing, at a time when producing printed documents was becoming dramatically easier, the font raised awareness of type features previously the concern only of professional printers. New York magazine commented that it "helped launch a thousand font obsessives."[4]

Hoefler Text features in the version bundled with Macs. The commercial release includes an additional bold weight (less bold than that shown) and a second, lighter design of engraved capitals.

Hoefler & Frere-Jones have expanded Hoefler Text to include additional typographic features, and the current commercial release now includes three weights (an additional bold weight beside the regular and black included with Macs) and two sets of engraved capitals, as well as the more slender display variant Hoefler Titling. These are released in the cross-platform OpenType format, usable by any modern computer rather than just by Macs.